As described in the German publication "ZWF", Zeitschrift fur wirtschaftliche Fertigung und Automatisierung, Year 83, Pages 354 to 359, (1988), the efforts for extending the application field of ceramic cutting materials have lately lead to development of ceramic materials on a basis of Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 reinforced with SiC whiskers. The embedding of SiC whiskers has a positive effect primarily on the mechanical characteristics and the performance when used as a cutting body. Samples containing whiskers are characterized particularly by considerably higher hardness and a higher tenacity and a correspondingly lower breaking risk, when compared with whiskerless samples.
Furthermore, the EP 0 208 910 proposes a fiber-reinforced ceramic material for tools, which has the following components: